I must say that when I heard that a good number of retailers were opening at midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving or, worse yet, on Thanksgiving Day, I was furious. For one of the least commercial holidays to suddenly be all about commercialism and getting a leg up on Christmas shopping (because isn’t that what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown?), was nothing short of sacrilege in my eyes. But the rich had found a way to get richer and the workers, pulling in a mighty eight to ten bucks an hour while being pulled away from their family dinners, be damned.

I have to admit, I like me a good bargain. I work too hard and save too hard to squander what I have, so when a day like Black Friday comes along I try to take advantage of the sales. No, I’m not one to camp out in front of the Best Buy several days in advance in order to pocket the latest big-screen-TV  (and then turn around and sell it on Craigslist), but I’ve been known to get up before the sun shines to at least get a bargain appliance or the latest video game for my kids at discount prices. It had become a bit of a tradition for me as well to slip out in the dark of morning before the kids had yet stirred and returning soon after they rose.

And that’s one tradition I was happy to continue until Black Friday became Black Thursday this year. Upon first hearing of the change, I was stunned and wished that this experiment would fail. I don’t have the data yet on how it went for the major retailers, but from my own observations it was a bust.

I woke at my usual 5 a.m. today and I did get out of bed, but I couldn’t bring myself to shower, dress, and make my way out in the shopping world. So, I went about my usual morning routine and when everything I needed to do had been accomplished, I decided to get a firsthand look at what had become of “the first shopping day of the Christmas season.”

What I found made me flabbergasted. Pulling into my usual mall parking lot, I observed the same number of cars I would normally find on any given Saturday morning of the year. I was even able to take my favorite spot in the lot. Inside the Target store it was much the same as outside–some shoppers milling around, but no one making mad dashes for the dozens (and I mean dozens) of leftover $19 DVD players or the stacks of discounted DVDs, video games, clothes, toys, and games. Carts were not filled to the brim. Shoppers were carefully thinking through their purchases and anyone who needed to check out was able to pull up to a checkstand without a wait. Reverse the reel to last year when the line to the checkstands snaked in and out of the aisles of the baby department and nearly three-quarters of the length of the south wall of the store.  Carts were overflowing with bargains such as $3 toasters and $3 coffeemakers, neither of which was offered this year. In fact, most of the deals were not steals.

Maybe the crazy shoppers who don’t mind camping out at the front door had come and gone long before I entered the store (and that’s likely the case), but there was still way more merchandise eight hours after opening than typically clears out in just an hour of most other Black Fridays.

I’m looking forward to hearing the stats on just how well Target, Walmart, Macy’s and the like fared on this Black Thanksgiving. I’m hoping for a turkey.

I’m not one to get into the newest fads or social networking trends, but I might be able to get into Twitter. I understand it kind of works this way: You just post some random thought of the day (or hour or minute) about basically nothing. I guess that’s a change from Facebook, where people post random thoughts about absolutely nothing. I haven’t looked into either one much, so maybe they’re very much the same. But I digress.

There are so many times each day when I am in a situation or am pondering some random thought when it hits me: I should write this down! But where’s the pen and paper or advanced android-enabled 7G device when you need one? So of course in 0.4 seconds the fleeting thought flies through my mind (Is that why they call it Twitter?), never to be thought of again.

Take today, for instance. I’m sitting outside my son’s school at pick-up in my hot car (hot as in uncomfortably warm, not hot as in Ferrari 458 Italia), with the full afternoon sun on me when I realize that the driver of the car parked kitty corner to me has black-tinted windows, is parked in the custodian’s driveway between two red curbs, and has her engine and air conditioner running even though the sun is streaming through the empty passenger-side window (or would be if the window weren’t tinted) and not the driver’s side. Now, mind you, if she doesn’t mind paying for the gas, which at this writing is $3.85 a gallon, that she’s wasting while sitting in her Acura SUV (which, I’m assuming gets as bad or worse gas mileage as my Toyota), so be it. It’s her decision. (That she’s spewing emissions from her tailpipe and a/c unit is a discussion for another day–or Twitter post of another day, if I ever get on board.)

But what bothered me is that she was parked in the custodian’s driveway (between, as I mentioned, two red curbs) because she was what, too privileged to park in a regular parking space? Now, mind you, Friday is a difficult day to park at the school. I’ll give her that. It’s trash day, so the street’s curbs are littered with empty trash cans. But there’s a simple solution to the trash can situation. It’s called getting off of your lazy butts and moving them up off the street. For God’s sake, they’re empty. And on wheels! How much easier could it get? And if they were moved, there’d be plenty of spaces to park along the curb. 

In fact, I had done just that. I stopped my humble Corolla, put it in neutral, set the emergency brake, opened my door, stepped out of the car, wheeled the nearest can off of the roadside, and resumed parking my vehicle. That took about 15 seconds–and I’m being generous. Ms. Acura had arrived at the school before I had, so the parking space I ended up in–which could have fit two SUVs–was available when she pulled up. But I suppose it’s too much of a hassle to have to get down off of those plush leather seats to move a filthy trash can out of the way in order to park legally. Am I right?

And if that’s not enough, when the car parked in a legal space in front of her pulled out, she moved up into that space, even though a woman in another vehicle was waiting patiently for that very spot. I don’t know what runs through people’s selfish minds these days. Definitely something to tweet about.

Oh, and then there was the woman parked behind me at school yesterday who thought everyone wanted to hear “Rocket Man” blasting from her stereo . I was in the middle of a Bill Bryson essay. I was trying to read, OK? That shouldn’t be too hard to do while sitting in a vehicle on a typically quiet street by myself. But no, this woman must have thought a thirty-nine-year-old Elton John song was entertainment desired by everyone within earshot. Now, of course, it wasn’t Eminem or Ludacris or some rap act that some people might find objectionable, but it was music being played louder than necessary while I was trying to read.

And then, just the day before that. . . . Never mind. I’m just going to tweet the rest.

I just returned from one week away in Oregon. My best friend of 36 years lives there with her small family: a husband and young son. It was just three of us on the trip this year: my husband, my youngest child, and I. I worried that I’d be stressed about leaving the rest of the kids (all working adults) home, but once I became immersed in the majestic pine trees, the crashing coastal surf, and the sea otters, I didn’t think about home much at all. 

Having just one not-so-active child, our friends have a much slower pace of life than we have. They aren’t chauffering their son to ballgames, to music lessons, and to friends’ houses. They don’t confer with him on what he wants to eat for dinner, how much video game time he would like (there’s not even a game player in the entire house, for that matter), or when he feels like coming home from his friend’s house so he can get to his chores and homework; they set the pace and he follows along. In other words, he fits into their lifestyle instead of the other way around. How refreshing is that?

Unfortunately, our life is the “other way around.” Once soccer season, followed by soccer season, followed by baseball and lacrosse season, with another session or two of soccer season sprinkled in gets going, our kids’ lives dictate not only what’s for dinner (typically something frozen or fast), but when we eat, when we sleep, and when we get up in the morning.

I long for a slower-paced life where I can drive 55 on the freeway instead of 70, where drivers use the passing lane to actually pass, where people take advantage of warm, sunny days because they know the rain and cool weather is just around the corner. I want to live in a place where the competition is halved.

At one of the children’s museums my son and his friend were playing at, several other boys around their ages asked if they would like to play together. So they all joined in. First it was a game of hide and seek inside a giant Erector set maze, then it was tag. No joy sticks, no remote controls, no TVs or computers were necessary. Just add boys between the ages of 9 and 12 and an area in which to run and hide and you’ve got yourself a couple hours of fun.

I noticed too that none of the boys was wearing designer jeans or skate clothes, which are so popular where we live. I couldn’t recognize a single brand of shirt, shorts or shoes on those children, and that’s the way it ought to be. Competition seems to be a way of life here that even children are forced to join in. I say let kids be kids–let them play without electronic gadgets and let them wear clothes that their friends won’t envy.

I so enjoyed the trip that I hope to take many more before our son and our friends’ boy are too old to want to hang out together and do simple things like play hide and seek and watch movies at night. I’m also hoping to one day be able to pursue a slower pace of life, one in which the air is fresh and clear and there’s plenty of time to breathe it in. Let the rat race continue, if need be, but I’ll be watching it from my rear view mirror.

I think I first saw the “no bad days” bumper sticker on a car in Hawaii. I wish I could share the philosophy. Of course, if I lived in Hawaii I probably could. Today, however, in this heartless metropolis I had a bad day. The entire family had a bad day, in fact. My husband was stuck in traffic for four hours, for one.

As for me, the day started normal enough. But then a plan I had went unfulfilled and so I decided to run an errand in the short amount of free time I had. I needed to exchange a pair of running shoes at a department store. This was my second time making the trip. The first time I discovered when I got home that in the box was one white sneaker and one gray. I couldn’t make an even exchange, I was told, because I had paid for the more expensive gray pair, so I had to find the match to the white one. With the assistance of the shoe clerk, I had a matching set, or so I’d thought, until I got home, tried them on, and discovered that although the colors of the shoes were now the same, one was a B, or medium, width and the other, a D, or wide.

So, a week went by until I could go in. And, you guessed it, the other mismatched pair was nowhere to be found. And there were no others of this type in my size, so I came home empty handed. (Somewhere in a neighboring community a woman is thinking to herself, “My, that right shoe is so much tighter than the left!”)

All right. Not the end of the world there. But then I had to gently encourage my son to figure out a schedule of classes for his first semester of college (I lied, I yelled). It was his day to register online, and the classes go fast.  Mind you, I never had to do this for my girls. They just knew what needed to be done and when. They figured out a schedule and myriad possible alternatives in case their desired courses were filled. Once they had what they needed, they then asked me to put the credit card info in, and, just like that, they were registered. My son, however, waited until the last minute to even figure out which classes are recommended for his major–or for any major, for that matter. So, I was in a scramble-bamble to help him determine what was necessary. And of course, being this day and age and trying to enroll in a public junior college, the pickings are extremely slim. There isn’t enough money to pay enough professors to fill the need for the students, so the students suffer. We all suffer. Especially me. Today. I was on my last nerve, in a panic, trying to help him out, while simultaneously working on two assignments, which are timed. Picture the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Picture me being trampled on said floor.

And if that isn’t bad enough, in the middle of it all, my son looked out the front window to see a meter man (or whatever the male equivalent of meter maid is) getting back into his buggy after leaving a parking citation on my van–the van my son drives and had parked with the front bumper one foot over the red curb. A curb that was painted only at the prompting of a neighbor who wanted another feuding neighbor to stop parking his and his visitors’ vehicles all over the cul-de-sac. So, within the next thirty days, if and when I can find the time, I will have to send a letter off to the city to fight this ticket. The city will probably be reluctant to give in, being that it’s an institution that gets funding from the same people who won’t allocate enough money to the colleges in order to provide enough classes for their students. Sometimes I just want to pack it up and move away. But what state isn’t suffering like this one?

I’m guessing Hawaii.

I think myself unfortunate at times to not have all the accoutrements of what has become today’s middle-class lifestyle, but for the most part I realize how fortunate I am to have the objects–and especially the people and the peace of mind–I do have in my life. I’m not a risk taker and neither is my husband. The few risks we have taken have paid off, but they were well-thought-out plans, not impetuous, off-the-wall decisions. I can say I’d rather be this type of person and maybe not have all the stuff, all the fun, and all the adventure that others have in order to live a lifestyle I can trust will be there tomorrow, and the next day and the next.

One of my dearest friends just called me up to say that she and her husband are facing foreclosure. He had taken a huge risk by stopping to pay the mortgage eighteen months ago in order to force the bank’s hand into setting up a loan modification on a house that has lost nearly half its original value. The risk did not pay off, obviously, and my friend is faced with having to uproot her family to a temporary residence before her husband (he’s the one who makes all the financial decisions without even consulting her) can acquire a loan to buy a less-expensive home. As I said, the value of the houses in their once-promising area have halved in the past six or so years since moving in. The area that was once in the works to be an inexpensive enclave of homes away from two very big cities, where families could buy 3,000-square-foot houses for $300,000 to $400,000–at the time, half of what they were in the two nearest big cities–went belly-up. Losing jobs during the current bad economy, the homeowners who moved there five or six years ago looking for that steal of a deal are now walking away from those very homes, because many of them didn’t have the money or the good credit or the dependable jobs to pay for loans in the big cities in the first place. Banks were eager to lend to these property virgins in order to make a sale.

My friend’s husband, ironically, did have the money to pay off the original loan, and yet he was willing to play with the bank in order to try to get them to reduce the mortgage to current market values. He had thought it was wise at the time. Now the decision looks extremely foolish.

So, my dear friend may very well be facing the biggest move of her life, packing up her two girls and the beautiful home they have containing all the fine things in life (a baby grand piano, flat-screen TVs, a Wii, granite countertops, nice clothes) because of a foolish decision made by her husband.

If taking risks means possibly gambling away my lifestyle, my well-being, my kids’ stability, I’ll happily stick with the devil I know than the very real, risky devil I don’t.

There’s nothing worse than getting called out for a shoddy job. (Well, there’s probably something worse, I’m sure, but this is a pretty bad workplace situation.) That’s what happened to me this week, not once, but twice. Both times had to do with my not being aware (or not having been made aware) of the protocol of a certain project. And part of what I was called out for was not my fault. The other, just yesterday, was for something I should have known and just forgot. (I could blame it on early  onset Alzheimer’s, but that’s not very professional.) So, I feel foolish.

This client is one of my best sources of work. Without her last year I earned half as much as the year before. With her this year I’m back up to where I should be. But I can already tell that she is going to decrease my workload (she said about as much) and this worries me. All I can hope for is that she doesn’t do this to a drastic extent and that we’re back on solid ground soon. I was off to such a good start this year.

But it’s not just the loss of income that will hurt, it’s the loss of pride I am feeling and the lack of confidence she now has in me. The feeling that I can screw up without meaning to scares me about myself. I’m not as infallible as I thought.

All I can do from here on out is try to do the best job possible. No screw ups. Ask more questions.  Double-check. Triple-check, if need be. In other words, don’t allow this to happen again.

I must get back up on the horse and pray for a smooth course ahead.

I’m of the mindset of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”; “Leave well enough alone”; “Don’t upset the apple cart”; and all those other fine words of caution. Nothing upsets me more (other than illness or injury to a loved one) than having something break in the home or car. I detest having to make the call to the contractor, plumber, electrician, auto mechanic, or whomever. It fills me with anxiety beyond belief. Maybe it’s the expense, but the larger part is the feeling of something in my world has gone wrong and I do not know how to make it better. (Yeah, I’m a bit of a control freak.) I also don’t like the feeling of being taken advantage of, and I absolutely despise the feeling of having to pay someone to do a job that turns out to be something I could probably have done about as well. At least if I’d done the work and it turned out to be mediocre, I’d have no one to blame but myself.

Last week I contacted a contractor who is the next-door neighbor of a good friend of mine. His company has done a lot of work on her house, and it’s good work, too, from what I can tell. Believe you me, I’ve watched enough home-repair shows to know what’s good and what’s not. So, I had little apprehension hiring this guy for a simple R&R–removal and replacement–of a bathroom vanity top and faucet, plus any patching and painting of the exposed wall where the previous top had been. I went with him over the big-box home-improvement warehouse subcontractor who would do the job literally for twice as much.

We worked out a cash arrangement, and my friend’s neighbor’s worker showed up at my door (an hour late, I may add) on Tuesday. He got right to work but had to leave and return several times to allow the patch job on the wall to dry. He seemed a bit overwhelmed at times and I got the impression that he wasn’t the right man for the job early into the project.

In fact, I learned soon after he arrived that this was just his second job for this contractor, and that it was a type of trial run, a probation period. In other words, I didn’t get one of the workers who’d transformed my friend’s kitchen into the showplace that it became. I got a newby whose work had barely been tested. I thought that should have been told to me upfront. I would have gone with a noncash, regular-employee setup–or, more likely, the home-improvement store’s subcontractor even at twice the price.

After I had paid this guy (which he split with the boss, he told me), I noticed some problems with the plumbing job. There was moisture coming out of the trap and the left handle of the rather expensive faucet I’d bought could be turned 360 degrees. Not good. I called him last night and he was planning to call the faucet company and find out what he should do. (Huh? Not exactly professional. I thought he should know how to repair that.) Did I mention that he brought his daughter to my house yesterday? A baby of 11 months. She’s an adorable girl, but he decided to bring her with him when his babysitter fell through. Had he not brought her with him, he would not have been able to finish the job, he said (this was before the faucet problem was noticed).

I read online that he spinning faucet problem can occur if the handle stop–typically a piece of plastc–is broken off during installation. Or it could just be a matter of the installer not tightening the valve properly. Either way, this worker didn’t know off the bat how to rectify the situation. He is now, if I can believe him, getting in touch with the faucet manufacturer, who is supposed to help him troubleshoot the situation.

But it is past the time I was supposed to hear back. I feel I should call the boss and make him aware of the situation. The boss, who’d come by three times on Tuesday to check this guy’s work, never followed up with me to see if I was satisfied, and he never came when the job was “done.”  The worker he hired might have broken a brand-new, expensive faucet, which will mean a delay to replace or fix it. That’s our main bathroom, so a delay will be a hassle for us. This was supposed to be a two-hour job. It’s turned into a three-day job, and it’s not over yet.

I may eventually need to go to the home improvement store where I bought the faucet to have it replaced. Had I just hired the subcontractor from the store, I would have been able to deal with this more efficiently. That person would have been responsible for replacing the faucet, not me. And the store would probably want to do right by me and give me some kind of incentive to use their installation services again. I guess this is not a case of “if it’s broke, don’t fix it,” but rather “you get what you pay for.”

I’ve learned my lesson well.

My husband and I just found out today that the marriage of long-time friends of ours is breaking up because the woman (I’ll call her Mary) has been carrying on an extramarital affair.  The couple has two kids–the girl is about ready to graduate from high school and head to college and the other, a boy, is only 12 years old. So far they have been doing what the husband (I’ll call him Harry) considers to be a pretty good job of shielding the kids from the pain, but the divorce proceedings are imminent. It’s only a matter of time before the mom is moved out of the house and the children, if they already haven’t picked up on the clues (and I guarantee you that they have), find out the entire truth.

My husband met Mary at a mixer for students in our city who were about to embark in graduate studies at a university in another city. In that school Mary soon met a funny Woody Allen-type man from Chicago. They quickly fell in love and despite their differences (she, an Irish Catholic and he, an agnostic who was raised a Jew) married when they graduated with advanced degrees in hand. Mary moved back to our city as did my husband and I and our two little girls, and Mary married Harry here. My husband was in the wedding party.

Fast forward 20 years later. We now find Mary and Harry in a long-term marriage and they now have two children. Going against tradition and because she appeared to be the more career-driven one, Mary worked full-time while Harry became self-employed. Harry was there when the kids needed rides to and from school, when the kids were home for the summer, when the kids were in need of a hug, or a meal, or a parent to be present. Mary worked.

Mary’s job took her out of town. Mary’s job put her in contact with other career-driven people, including a boss with whom she started the affair in 2009. Now knowing a little bit about Mary, you wouldn’t think she is the type. Coming from a good Catholic family, she raised her kids in the faith; her daughter even attends an expensive private Catholic school. Looking at Mary, you wouldn’t think she is the type. Not homely, but not overly attractive either. Her complexion is drab and she looks well beyond her years. “Hot” is not an adjective one would use to describe her, but, according to Harry, neither is the guy she is seeing.

What he is, however, is wealthy, accessible, and surprisingly (or not) married. To be married and carrying on an affair is horrible enough, but to be married and carrying on an affair with someone who is also married is unthinkable. Inexcusable.

Harry has every right to kick her out of the house, but he’s going slowly, making sure that he isn’t stiffed for all he’s done for her and the kids over the years. He will get the children–or at least the young boy who in a few months will be the only minor. He will, deservedly so, get the house that he cleans, he makes meals in, he has raised the children in. And that’s the way it is. Another marriage bites the dust. Another couple goes their separate ways. And the children are left picking up the pieces. But there’s no doubt with which parent they will be spending the holidays with, which one they will have an allegiance to. If I could, I’d ask Mary straight to her face, “Is this the legacy you want to leave for your children? Is this what you want them to remember you by?” Of course she would answer no, but it’s too late. What she wants is never going to be an option. She has given up her family, her life as she knew it, her life as the children and her husband knew it. And for what? Another loser just like herself.